Without knowing whether Marrache and Fitts are direct recipients of Fairpoint’s campaign contribution largess, or merely ideologically sympatico with the notion of keeping federal money for job creation out of Maine and telling their constituents that they’ll get broadband when Fairpoint is good and ready to give it to them, this little incident provides a valuable reminder why Congress ought to finally pass the Community Broadband Act, which would prevent states legislatures from shafting their citizens in the name of ideological purity.

I would hope that the good folks of Maine would make their feelings on this subject sufficiently clear to prevent other members of the Maine legislature from joining this foolishness — at least if they want to see jobs created from building the network and the economic growth broadband penetration provides. Of more concern is that this sort of response (especially if it succeeds) has the potential to discourage NTIA and RUS from funding projects with a state/local government component. Again, I would hope that NTIA and RUS will continue to evaluate programs on merit and give grants where they will do the most good rather than let a few state reps who would rather collect campaign contributions for themselves than grants for their states scare them off.

More importantly, this should be the wake up call for Congress to finally pass the Community Broadband Act. This piece of legislation goes back to 2006, and has made it out of Committee in the Senate with bipartisan support twice. In the absence of serious threats from state legislatures to pass, it has simply never made it to a full floor vote. But as the Marrache-Fitts-Fairpoint bill in Maine makes clear, it would serve all of us to have this issue cleared up once and for all.